By Molly Magennis
The Maribyrnong Truck Action Group (MTAG) has supported calls to incentivise the use of electric zero-emission trucks.
The Australian Trucking Association (ATA) and the Electric Vehicle Council (EVC) collaborated on a new report, outlining a series of policies necessary to support the switch to electric trucks from diesel-powered ones.
The ATA’s report called for electric trucks to be exempt from urban curfews, incentive payments to reduce the cost of installing charging infrastructure at depots and incentive payments to reduce the upfront purchase price of an electric truck.
The MATG was formed back in 2005 out of concern about the negative effects of the growing number of trucks present throughout Maribyrnong.
MATG president Martin Wurt said the group supported the report and that there needs to be government incentives to help with the changeover.
“We definitely think that moving away from diesel and fossil fuels is the answer in the city of Maribyrnong,” he said.
“We’ve got some of the highest asthma rates, some of the highest stroke rates and most of those can be directly related back to truck movements.”
“We definitely think the federal government should be doing something. I mean, they seem to wipe their hands of pollution stuff … and leave it up to the state.”
Mr Wurt said the government’s dismissal of these issues shows a lack of commitment to tackling climate change.
“[If] the government is going to be moving towards 2050, zero emissions targets and things like that, we’ve got to start somewhere. Certainly, cleaning up dirty old diesel trucks is a great place to start.”
